Why animated films are the UK’s favourite – and why that’s not likely to change

America’s Fox television network calls its Sunday night schedule “Animation Domination”. That would make a good label for the current state of the British box office. In 2013 animation became the top-grossing film genre at UK cinemas, making almost £250million, a fifth of total box office takings.We shouldn’t be surprised.

Animation’s present popularity is built on solid and clearly identifiable foundations. The easiest way for a film to be enormously popular is for it to appeal to everyone who goes to the cinema. Films that truly are “for all the family” have a far larger potential audience than those that only appeal to one demographic. Animation plays well with the largest group of UK filmgoers – people aged seven to 24 – but its appeal stretches far beyond the young.

Many of the current crop of animated films – such as the widely adored Lego Movie – appeal as strongly to parents (and even grandparents) as they do to children. These films don’t have adults begrudgingly chaperoning children at the cinema on spare afternoons in the school holidays; they have them marching their sons and daughters to queue up on opening day.

And these pan-generational audiences are loyal. One of the most reliable laws of 21st-century movie-going is that sequels make more money than original films – and many major animated movies have become dependable franchises. Despicable Me 2, the most popular film in the UK last year, was a sequel. It will be followed by a second sequel, Despicable Me 3, in 2017. And next year will bring a spin-off, The Minions.

The Despicable Me franchise has joined the likes of the Shrek films, the Toy Story trilogy and the Ice Age movies as an increasingly successful multi-year series, as opposed to a one-off box sensation, such as 1990s classics The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.

What’s more, the mammoth audiences that flocked to Despicable Me 2 aren’t just loyal to established animated franchises; they are loyal to animation itself. At least one generation of adults has grown up watching The Simpsons (and South Park and King of the Hill and Family Guy…) on TV. They know animation can be more sophisticated than live-action, and don’t assume it is pitched beneath their intelligence level.

The same generation grew up in the mini-golden age of Pixar and Studio Ghibli, which for around 20 years have produced animated movies that clearly appeal to children, but also engage teenagers and enchant adults. Around the 2000s, Pixar and Studio Ghibli achieved what Disney had done in the early days of animated features: they became brands that made huge audiences eager to see their next production not because of what it was about or who directed it, but simply because it was the latest film from Pixar or Studio Ghibli.

No-one could sensibly argue that animation was not UK cinema’s most popular film genre last year by questioning its financial success. But they could sensibly argue that it was not the UK’s most popular film genre by questioning whether it should, in fact, be considered a genre.

There are animated films in many genres. There are animated comedies, animated adventure films and animated science fiction films. There are even animated documentaries. And so, if all animated films belong to one genre, then perhaps all live-action films do too. By that logic, animation may not be as all-conquering as it seems.

But even if we view animation only as a type of filmmaking, as opposed to a distinct movie genre, it is still the most influential type of filmmaking of the moment. Animation is now immensely influential over the content of even live-action films. Many of the most successful live-action films of recent years – superhero movies, such as Avengers Assemble, for example – are based on comic books and are essentially live-action cartoons.

On top of that, all those films rely greatly on computer-generated imagery. CGI is a form of animation and so many of the most successful live-action blockbusters, and indeed any films that make use of CGI, can most accurately be categorised as hybrids of live-action and animation. Consequently, the distinction between what is and what is not an animated film is becoming increasingly arbitrary.

We cannot say with any certainty that the box office results of 2013 will become a trend, and that films that are 100 per cent animated will continue to be the most successful on show in British cinemas. But there is little reason to believe they will not continue to be among the most successful. And there is no reason to believe that animation, alone and in conjunction with live-action, will not continue to dominate blockbuster movies.